I need a little help from an "old rabbit"..... nothing wild.

Hello my friend, you should wait till the plant finished stretching and growing. This will be around 2 weeks after you notices the first signs from blooming. When this is done you can make a plan for what leaves you want to defoliate. You only want to defoliate leaves that can cause problems like blocking light or airflow. I like to study my plant, think of the shape and airflow that I want and then mark the leaves that I want to defoliate. Study it one more time if this is really the way to go and then do it. Do not overdo it and leaves that don't block light of airflow should not be defoliated!

There's many techniques you can employ at this point. They are all considered high risk. You ideally know how your strain responds before you do it. You also missed some already you can do first day of flowering. If your goal is just to get a healthy plant with good bud I would let it grow at this point and just watch your humidity. If you can't get good circulation and take care of humidity then start defoliating <10% at a time. I'd do it after stretching is over and buds are formed and it's not growing anything but buds any more. I had two grows and one plant I defoliated under the screen, the other I did not. Looked like it made the top buds grow a bit more but the other has some dank looking undergrowth buds some of which are almost as large as top side. When I trimmed I trimmed a bunch of tiny buds and leaves and made some Bhang Tea.

Plant should be very strong and healthy for not-harmfull effect of defoliation. Its good to use combined with bendings to stimulate growth of new branches from trained ones. Also gives good effects if it uncovers weaker lighted parts/branches during flowering. In other cases its important if would it give any positive effects. Bless

Have it done around day 21